By Sujit Chakraborty, IANS,
Imphal : India’s Tipaimukh dam project, coming up in Manipur on the river Barak that flows into Bangladesh, will not harm that country as feared by its politicians and civil society, say officials here.
“India will not do anything that harms the interests of its neighbouring country,” said T.C. Borgohain, executive director of the North Eastern Electric Power Corp (Neepco), which is developing the Rs.81.38 billion ($1.7 billion) project.
The Tipaimukh Multipurpose Hydel Project (TMHP) on the Barak, some 200 km upstream of the Bangladesh border, was in the eye of a storm when opposition parties and environmentalist groups in Bangladesh started opposing it, saying it could cause desertification downstream.
Part of the Brahmaputra river system, the Barak bifurcates on entering Bangladesh into the Surma and Kushiyara rivers.
Indian officials said the opposition to the Tipaimukh dam is unwarranted as both India and Bangladesh would benefit from the project. Once completed, it would generate 1,500 MW of power, they added.
“The TMHP would regulate excess waters, control floods in both Sylhet district of Bangladesh and western Manipur and southern Assam of India. It will open a new waterway from Haldia port in West Bengal to northeast India via Bangladesh,” Borgohain told IANS.
He added that the project would also lead to the development of two national highways – NH 53 and NH 150 – and thereby improve the surface connectivity between Assam, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.
“After using water for generating electricity, the plant will release the used water back into the river,” Borgohain said.
Following widespread opposition in Bangladesh against the project, the government in Dhaka last week decided to send a parliamentary delegation to the project site to assess its possible ecological effects on the country.
Bangladesh’s main opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia had written a letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week, asking him to stop the construction at the dam site.
The Indian government, however, seems determined to go ahead with the project. The union environment and forest ministry as well as the Manipur government have given clearances to the project.
Now it is awaiting the nod of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). The project is scheduled for commissioning in 87 months from the date of the CCEA clearance.
Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty had earlier this month said the critics of the project did not have even “basic data” about the TMHP.
Speaking to reporters in Dhaka after meeting Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, the Indian diplomat said: “Your experts don’t have basic data. Some of them, I am afraid, are being politically motivated and are raising the issue for other reasons.”
The TMHP, one of the largest hydel power projects in northeastern India, is also facing considerable opposition from within the country.
The Action Committee Against Tipaimukh Project (ACATP), an umbrella group of about 20 organisations in Manipur, is spearheading the agitation against the dam.
According to the ACATP, the 162.8-foot high dam would submerge 286.2 square km of land owned by tribals.
“It will affect 27,242 hectares of land and inundate nearly 100 villages, displacing over 1,300 families, mostly tribals, in Tamenglong district of western Manipur,” said Aram Panmei, a spokesman of the ACATP.
The ACATP, along with several other non-governmental organisations (NGOs), has held many seminars, human chains and protest demonstrations against the TMHP.
It has also submitted a memorandum to the prime minister, requesting him to scrap the project.
Officials said separatist outfits in the northeast are also opposing the project as many of their hideouts would be submerged once the construction is over.
“Separatist outfits are also against the ambitious project. Once the dam is constructed, their safe haven in jungles would be submerged by the water reservoir,” a project expert, who did not wish to be named, told IANS.
Rajkumar Ranjan Sinha of the Earth Science Department of Manipur Central University said the controversy between India and Bangladesh over the project could be solved through bilateral talks.
“We want Bangladesh to sit with the Indian authorities to discuss the crucial issue. Besides, it is an issue of common rivers and India cannot take decisions alone,” Sinha told IANS.
(Sujit Chakraborty can be contacted at [email protected])